Safe Beauty: Great Gifts from Your Kitchen

Gifts made with love are always better than the grab-and-go kind from the stores. The makers are gifting their time, creativity and thoughts, instead of just spending money. The giving is as much fun as the receiving...

Jan was the youngest of seven children, raised on a farm in New Zealand. She has been making her own cosmetics and remedies since she was old enough to realize what fun it was, so has more than sixty years worth of safe recipes and hints to share. On coming to Canada about fifty years ago, Jan married, raised a family in northern B.C. and now lives in the Kootenays in the sunny, southern mountains.

It was the fierce New Zealand sun that sparked her interest in skin care, an interest that has continued over the years, while teaching, raising five children and spending every possible minute outdoors, riding, hiking and prospecting with husband Dan, a third-generation placer gold miner. In spite of all this exposure to the elements, and 70+ busy years, her skin still fits her, so she knows that her remedies work

It seems that men as well as women are looking for ways to improve their health and (literally) to save their skins. They just don’t know where to start. The ‘Kitchen Cosmetics’ series can help with that.

Jan is working on a series of do-it-yourself books, covering skin care for women, men, teens and the very young, as well as recipes using native Canadian plants. Her goal? To help folks to smile more and become healthier.

Are her recipes and ideas simple? Yes. Are they effective? Definitely (if they can keep seventy-year-old skin in shape, think what they can do for some gorgeous young person…)